Sleeping Steve
by Trefoil-underscore
Summary: Herobrine is in a bad mood, but never fear! Terrorizing Steve is a surefire way of combatting any sort of melancholy, angst or unstoppable rage issues! There's one problem though. Steve needs to be awake to be terrorized, and he's really hard to wake up. WARNING: complete and utter fluff, composed under the effects of sleep deprivation.
Herobrine gently set the book down on his desk and looked for something less fragile that he could throw across the room. He'd been working on a difficult spell for nearly a week straight. Every now and then he noticed that he was hungry and grabbed some food to eat while he worked. Sleep wasn't a problem for him, and wouldn't be until he'd been up for much longer than this, but he did miss the feel of oblivion. He hadn't seen daylight in a while, seemed like every time he stopped for a break it was night. Then again, the skylight room was beautiful in the night. The skylight was underwater, and at night, dim black shapes swam across the rippling blue-faded light of the moon and stars. The cool stillness of the room and the softly flickering light could calm him when he was only mildly irritated, but at the moment he felt like blowing things up. He'd already blown up all the things that he could easily blow up without repercussions. He growled softly to himself, thinking, and stopped as a thought hit him. He'd go and see Steve. He grinned evilly. Everyone knew laughter was therapeutic, and it was beyond hilarious to see Steve freaking out over him. He didn't even need to do anything at this point, just teleport to wherever he was and look at him, and he'd be fleeing the scene in a blind panic. Hahahaha. He only really attacked him anymore to keep him from suspecting that he was getting soft. He wanted Steve to _stay_ cripplingly afraid of his very presence. Herobrine walked eagerly out of the room.

A few seconds later he was back, having realized that he wasn't wearing pants. That might have come across as creepy in more ways than he intended.

Several minutes, a few fits of object-hurling rage, and some digging through seemingly infinite piles of laundry later, Herobrine stood in front of a mirror eyeing himself with approval. He was now wearing pants. They were black. He was also wearing a scarlet tunic with golden sigils which he thought made him look especially intimidating. He bared his teeth and let the light behind his eyes grow to blinding intensity—blinding, of course, to others but not to himself. A faint crackling and an annoying white haze surrounded him, but he had grown used to them. It was one of the more benign side effects of absorbing the power of lighting. Satisfied with his appearance, he focused on Steve's location and prepared to move. The crackling light around him intensified until he vanished from the floor.

Steve was fast asleep. He, also, had kept awake for longer than the normal human capacity while mining, but since he continued to sleep regularly whether he needed it or not he felt disruptions in his pattern more keenly. He was curled up on his side, one hand raised above his head as if to ward off monsters. His hair was cut close to his head and looked like it might not have seen a comb for several decades. He took better care of his beard, which was trimmed very short. Old burn scars covered his forearms. A blue-bladed sword lay near the bed, within easy reach, and the room was a blaze of multicolored light from an assortment of decorative lanterns. A whiter light appeared at the foot of his bed and resolved itself in the shape of a man, causing a loud shriek and a book to fall off a table on the other side of the room. Herobrine waited. Steve continued to breathe evenly, and his face was peaceful. That didn't wake him up? It should have. He walked around and stood close by his head, staring at him, eyes blazing. Waiting.

Nothing happened.

He kept waiting.

Nothing kept happening.

He was getting tired of this. Was Steve playing dead, or was he actually asleep? He didn't think Steve was a good enough actor to fake sleep this convincingly. He poked him. "Hey. It's me." he continued to breathe evenly. Herobrine felt his pulse. No, he was definitely asleep. Herobrine looked at him in confusion. Well now what? He was supposed to wake up in screaming terror the moment he entered the room. It could still happen at any minute, of course, but the delay was making it awkward. Herobrine poked him again. "Steve. For the love of Notch. Why?" no response. "Cookies? Kittens wearing hats? Peace treaty with the creepers?" nope. "Alex is back and she really likes you." not even a twitch. "Zombie Alex? Raarrgh?" Steve's face remained relaxed in perfect tranquility. Herobrine incredulously checked his pulse again. He was just sleeping through all of this? Well then. Herobrine leaned over him. "HEY." nothing. "Steve! Why can't you just wake up and let me torture you!?" still nothing. Herobrine hit him. Steve uncurled, rubbed the sore place, grimaced, and finally looked up. Herobrine glared down at him.

Steve smiled. Then he went back to sleep.

F[editor has intervened here]ING WHAT? WHAT? HOW?!

After recovering from his shock, Herobrine realized that he must not have woken up fully, not enough to react. If he'd been a creeper, Steve would be spread out thinly across the walls and ceiling now. Guessing that he would be only lightly asleep at this point, Herobrine poked him again and waited for a result. Steve sighed. "Hey." well that was something. He kept waiting. Steve appeared to fall back into deep sleep and didn't respond to further poking. Herobrine ran around the room gesturing angrily and came back. Still nothing. He had to be faking. Only, he was certain that he wasn't. So… why? And why had he smiled at him, of all things? Like he was glad to see him there. Obviously he'd been dreaming. But it had almost reminded him of … things. A long time ago. Steve had been happy to see him.

Herobrine hit him again. This time he flailed awkwardly in his general direction before going back to sleep (if he could be said to have woken at all.) Herobrine sighed. It was a lost cause. He ought to just light him on fire, that would certainly work… eventually. But he couldn't let go of the idea that any minute now Steve was going to wake up. He couldn't possibly stay asleep after all that. Only, he could. He remembered now. Steve had always been hard to wake up if he was deeply asleep. At one point a much younger Steve had had recurring nightmares and would come to his room. He never woke him up, although Herobrine—or whoever that person in the past had been, the one with pale grey eyes and with his own name—had encouraged him to if he thought it would help. But Steve was too polite and the first he'd know of it would be in the morning when he found Steve on his couch. Well, it was usually the couch. Occasionally he would be draped over the desk or a chair or simply passed out on the floor. Once he woke with something heavy on his feet. He kicked it and it curled into a ball and grunted. "Steve?" no response. He sat up. Yep, that was Steve. He shook him until he woke up. "Hey! Bad night?" "Mmph." "Well get up, you're going to be late for work." Steve seemed to comprehend and flopped over the footboard onto the floor with an almighty thump. But he didn't move anymore after that. Herobrine (were he and that strange, stupid young man really the same person?) tried shaking him some more, finally gave up, put a pillow under his head and went down to the village himself. Hagen, being Hagen, was very decent about it, especially when Herobrine took the blame for making Steve stay up late monster hunting with him, but then Steve ruined everything by crashing through the door behind him, sputtering apologies. "You're a mess," commented Hagen. Steve tried to apologize. "Shut up. Sit down and drink some tea. And tuck your shirt in. And you," to Herobrine, "Quit running around like a hellion and let your friends get some sleep." but he grinned approvingly.  
That was a long time ago. Steve hated him. He'd probably always hated him. Herobrine had been a fool not to see him for what he was sooner. It was always a confusing, infuriating experience to look at the past, and he reminded himself not to do it again.

"Just wake up, will you?" said Herobrine. Nope, nothing. He knelt next to the bed with a faint growl of irritation. Surely the light from his eyes at such close range would wake him up. Any minute now… Herobrine crossed his arms on the side of the bed and waited. His intimidating look had been replaced by one of bored disbelief which would have been amusing on anyone less lethal. As time went by his eyes dimmed. Suddenly his head fell forward onto his crossed arms. Neither of the archenemies moved for several minutes. Then Herobrine's head jerked up and he scrambled to his feet. He hadn't realized that he was tired. He looked at Steve. Of course he was still fast asleep. Of course. Herobrine straightened up, shook himself, and drove his sword through Steve's neck into the floor. That woke him up, briefly. Then he disintegrated into a puff of white smoke. "Good enough," grunted Herobrine, intending to swing his sword onto his shoulder and walk away. His sword was stuck. It took a lot of undignified jerking and swearing to get it loose, and when it did come loose he lost his balance. He managed to fall on the bed instead of the floor, though that wasn't much better, since Steve's bed consisted of a few blankets thrown over wooden planks. Why didn't he make something more comfortable? It made no sense. But maybe it reminded him of home. Not that that made sense either. Herobrine preferred not to think of the past. He'd had a better time than Steve, he thought. So why would Steve care to remember? He put away his sword and walked out of the house. A moment later he teleported back into the kitchen. Were those cookies? Yes, they were. He grinned. This wasn't over yet.

A few minutes later Steve was back. Herobrine heard his arrival from where he was sitting in the library, eating cookies and eyeing a terrible painting of himself: a thud and a muffled scream. Respawning was unpleasant. Steve stumbled into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of milk. Herobrine waited, munching a cookie, and surreptitiously watched him from behind the door. Steve picked up a plate with a few crumbs and looked at it. "Nooo. Why?!" Herobrine teleported outside and laughed hysterically.

 **A/N: cover art of a lovely sleeping Steve is by Lcraft from DeviantArt. Used with permission.**


End file.
